Click
by zoulvisia
Summary: After all, Midii thought, as she raised the gun, it was only the next logical step. She pulled the trigger.


**Title: **Click

**Author:** zoulvisia

**Pairing:** Midii Une-centric, brief cameo by Nanashi, various OCs

**Word count: **4940

**Rating/Warnings:** Uh. I dunno. PG-13? R? I would just say "not for kiddies" except for the fact that I'm thirteen and I wrote this so I'll settle for: Some mature themes. Language, allusions to sex, death, suicide. (Rated T on -- please tell me if you think the rating should be upped.)

**Summary: **After all, Midii thought, as she raised the gun, she had lied for her family, backstabbed for her family, consigned people to death for her family...

It was just the next logical step.

She pulled the trigger.

_Click._

**Author's Notes: **A very depressing look at the life (and death) of Midii Une. Did I mention "depressing"? Be warned, this is NOT a light-happy-fluffy fic.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own GW, Midii Une, Nanashi or the world this is set in. The OCs are mine, but I don't care if they're plagiarized because there's really not much to plagiarize about them.

**CLICK**

The first time Midii lied to her teacher was a week after her eleventh birthday.

"So," said Mrs. Danikita, clasping her hands together and looking at the rows of faces staring at her; some interested, some apprehensive, some amused, some just glazed. "That's the last lesson for this term, would you believe it?" She gave forth a merry, bell-like laugh. "I'm sure you're all interested in what your end-of-term research paper is going to be on, ne? Well, I've decided to give you some free reign here: your assignment is to write a biography of one of the important leaders we covered in this module – Heero Yuy, Zazia Shibiski – you get the picture. Your papers are due on the twentieth. Remember to come to me if you have any concerns or need help." She unclasped her hands. "That's it for today, class! Have a great weekend."

And suddenly everybody was hurrying, scurrying to leave the room in a scrape of chairs and chatter of voices. The clamour made Midii's head ache and she wanted to scream and scream and cry. But if there was one thing she knew it was self-control – an important thing for a girl who wanted to be an actress – so instead she walked up to Mrs. Danikita, who was putting her papers into a briefcase. Well, perhaps "walked" was a bit of an overstatement; she was so tired... so tired... Her feet felt like waterlogged tree trunks, her legs like overcooked spaghetti.

As she drew closer, Mrs. Danikita looked up. She was a handsome middle-aged in her forties with square spectacles and a square jaw; her black hair was sensibly bobbed. "Yes, Midii?" she asked as she shut her briefcase with a _clack_. "Is it about your grades?"

"No, actually, Mrs. Danikita," said Midii, looking at the floor and putting on an ashamed face. Her latest grades had been abysmal.

"_Midii! Midii!" The girl looked up from her papers, slammed down her pen._

"_Eetane, I'm trying to study!" she snapped. The little boy who had been running full-tilt towards where she sat in the corner of the tiny living room of their tiny apartment stopped abruptly, looking like a the famous kicked puppy. Midii sighed, feeling like an ogre. "I'm sorry, Eetane. I didn't mean to snap. What's the matter?" She put down the clipboard she had been holding and stretched out her hands to her younger brother. He took a few hesitant steps forward, then grasped her thumbs in his own small hands. She pulled him forward and sat him in her lap and stroked his hair._

"_I'm hungry," he mumbled, burying his head in her sweater. She sighed and rocked him back and forth. She felt as though life had just knifed her through the heart but wouldn't let her die._

"_I know, Eetane, I know. I'm hungry too."_

"_What are we having for dinner?" he asked, looking up at her with his huge green eyes._

_Midii felt as though somebody had just taken that knife which had lodged itself in her heart over the past few days and twisted it. "I don't know. I just don't know."_

"_Oh... well... I'm sure you'll make something good." Eetane beamed at her and Midii felt a weight descend on her shoulders._

"_Yes. You go back to Odeiya now – he's probably wondering where you are." She shooed him off and, watching him scamper into the bedroom he and the rest of the children shared, looked back down at her homework and picked up the pen. But she couldn't focus._

_Fifteen minutes later, loud coughing and choking sounds erupted from the bedroom next to her's, Akii's, Odeiya's and Eetane's. "Father..." she murmured, setting down her clipboard and pen and rushing over to his side. He was convulsing on the bed, choking and gagging. There was nothing she could do – nothing she could do but sit there and hold his hand in hers and mop his brow with a damp cloth and try to hide her tears from her brothers, who were clustered in the doorway._

_For the rest of her evening, the clipboard lay forgotten on the floor of the apartment. Odeiya, Eetane and Akii were in their rooms, no doubt lying in dead silence on their beds, perhaps half-heartedly playing with their toys and trying to pretend that everything was all right, and Midii sat by her father's side._

_The silence was broken only by her quiet sobs._

"What is it then?" Mrs. Danikita wanted to know. Midii looked up at the woman through her lashes.

"Well... it's... it's about my end-of-term research project, actually," she said quietly. "You see, I – I'll need to do some research, of course, and I'll need to use the library, except... I don't have a library card, and my father refuses to give me the money for it... You see, he doesn't think very much of education – he'd rather I were working, bringing in money, doing something useful..." She trailed off as the anguish crept into her voice.

"_Father," the girl said, her hazel eyes wide, pleading. "We can't go on like this! I have to... give up school... get a job..."_

"_No! Midii, no! I forbid it!" The raspy, tremulous quality to the man's voice detracted somewhat from the commanding tone he tried to adopt; but his dark brown eyes were hard and alight with fierce determination. His fingers squeezed her in an iron-vise grip, but she didn't try to draw away._

"_Father... it's the only way..."_

"_No, Midii. _No. _We'll make it through this somehow, but you have to get an education. I'm not going to let you go down that path. You're my beautiful, smart little girl; I'm not going to let you work in the grime of some factory or the endless grind of a cashier's job."_

"_Oh, but father... how will we manage?" The tears were choking her up; her voice was clogged and thick with pain._

"_Somehow, my darling. Somehow."_

_She gave in and cried._

"I see, Midii."

"I was wondering... if maybe you could lend me a few creds to buy a card? Because I don't have any friends and you're the only person I could think of..." Midii let her lower lip tremble dangerously. She saw, through her lashes, how Mrs. Danikita put on a false, sickly-sweet smile. _I'm better than she is,_ Midii thought with a bit of pride. _Way better. A five-year-old could see through that one._

_One day, I'm gonna be the most famous actress this shithole world has ever seen._

"Why, of course, Midii. Anything to help my students. Here, one moment..." The briefcase opened and the teacher fished about in it for a few moments before drawing out a wallet and, from the wallet, counting some creds into her palm. "This should be enough, I think." She held out the money and Midii accepted it, making sure to make her movements hesitant and uncertain.

"Th-thank you," she said softly, then looked up at Mrs. Danikita and smiled her best, brightest smile.

"Any time, Midii, any time. And if you need any help with that paper, you know who to come to. Now I really have to get going, I'm afraid. Have a good week, okay?"

"You too, Mrs. Danikita."

The briefcase shut with a _click_; Mrs. Danikita flashed another saccharine smile and hefted it, then walked out of the classroom, leaving Midii alone. The girl looked down at the creds in her palm, then pocketed them and smiled a cynical little smile. She knew that Mrs. Danikita knew that she would get fired if too many of her students got bad marks (you learned a lot of things if you just listened with a vacant smile on your face, Midii had discovered); what was a few creds to losing her job?

Of course, thought Midii, I could have told her the truth. I could have told her, I need some money to buy groceries, otherwise my brothers and I will have gone without a real dinner for three days in a row, but then she would have looked at me and smiled her sickly sweet smile and said... I'm sorry, Midii. I'd love to help you, but... _But._

There were a thousand excuses Mrs. Danikita could have made then. It came down to this: I'm afraid I have a heart the size of a raisin and couldn't give a damn if your father had the bubonic plague and your brother was a cripple and you were living on the street. I can't find it in me to care about your security or well-being.

_But your _own _well-being..._ Midii thought.

Midii patted her pocket, smiled a little smile, and left the classroom.

Fifteen minutes later, the heels of her shoes were going _click click click_ against the cool plastic tiles of the local supermarket.

When she got her research paper back, it had an "A" written at the top, and at the bottom Mrs. Danikita's comment – _I see that money went to good use, Midii! A few small errors, but on the whole a very well-informed and researched paper :-)_

What Mrs. Danikita didn't know was that Midii had known practically everything there was to know about Heero Yuy from the very start. He had been her childhood hero.

Children, she thought sadly, looking up from her marked paper to see Odeiya and Eetane roughhousing on the ground, grew up so quickly.

When she was twelve years old she became a blackmailer.

"You _bitch_!" Anlas screamed at her, his voice breaking on the last word. "You bitch! I thought you were my friend! I thought – I thought–"

"You can think?" she asked coolly. He snarled and leaped forward, but she said, "You don't want to hit me, Anlas. Or I'm going straight to the principal with these." She gestured with one hand at the bundle of photos in the other. Anlas drew back. He was shaking with anger. In the deserted back alley, there was nobody to hear his yells; Midii had known that he would yell and bluster – he was that sort of a person – so she had chosen a nice secluded place. If it had been somebody more dangerous, she would have chosen a more populated place; but Anlas was scrawny and she was more than a match for him.

Totally scrawny, she though, looking him up and down, with acne and buck teeth and frizzy hair. No wonder he had to hire whores.

"All right," he said finally. "All right. How much do you want?" He was panting as though he had run a race and Midii regarded him with some contempt; couldn't he keep a reign on his emotions? Midii looked down at the photos and _hmmm_ed softly.

"One hundred creds."

"_One hundred_?!"

"For now. Put them in an envelope in my locker. I expect them to be there by Monday. Or else I'll need to tell the principal about you fucking whores in the school's empty classrooms. I'd tell you to have a nice day except I don't think you will. Good luck getting that money from your parents."

She turned and walked away, thinking, _Don't glare at my back like that. At least you have parents to get that money from. _Later that night, she took a shower; she wished that she could spend enough time to scrub herself all over with soap, but knew that there was no point; not only could she not afford it, but even if she did, she still wouldn't feel clean.

"_Midii?" said Odeiya as he crept on to her lap. She was sitting on the sofa, watching the TV without really taking it in. She looked down at him and smiled._

"_What is it, Puck?" she asked him affectionately. She knew it was Odeiya because he had that mischievous glint in his eyes that Eetane lacked. She always called him Puck, after a character in something she had had to read in school once – some watered-down version of an old play, though she couldn't quite remember anything about it other than the character Puck – a character who was just as impish as her little brother. She had loved that character._

"_Wanna teddy bear," he said firmly, snuggling up against her chest. Midii felt her heart sink. A teddy bear. She barely managed to scrape enough money together for them to get clothes, food and pay the rent. How on earth would she procure a bear? But how could she refuse him?_

"_I'll get you one, Odeiya."_

"_Promise?" he asked incredulously, looking up at her wide-eyed._

"_Promise," she whispered fiercely. Then she pulled him close so he wouldn't see the tears brimming in her eyes._

On Monday, after classes had ended, she found the envelope tucked in to her locker. As she tucked it in to her backpack, Anlas passed by in the throng of people; he bumped into her, and she stumbled into the locker. He paused just a moment and hissed into her ear: "_I'll get you one day, Une._"

Midii watched him go, her expression blank. _He hates me._

_I wish I could let myself care._

Midii zipped up her backpack and slung it over her back. She spent the time she had between the end of school and her job to stop by a toy store and bought a teddy bear. It was soft and had plush, velvety rust-coloured fur. She thought the colour looked like dried blood, but knew it was Odeiya's favourite – or at least, it had been the last time she had had a chance to ask him. The bear had a white ribbon around its neck and surveyed the world with dark, solemn eyes. Midii put it away in her backpack hurriedly, but even then her back prickled. She could feel the bear's eyes staring at her through her layers of fabric. Accusing her.

_He thought you were his friend_, they said as she put the action figure she had bought for Akii and the finger puppets she had gotten for Eetane next to the bear. Then she shoved the thoughts away to the back of her mind and hurried to get to work.

When she came home and presented her brothers with their gifts, they were ecstatic. Eetane immediately gave her an impromptu performance with his new finger puppets, and Odeiya clutched the bear to his chest, grinning like the Cheshire cat.

In a haze of tiredness and happiness that had a strange guilty edge to it, which she determinedly pretended didn't exist, she cooked up some spaghetti for dinner, added a can of tomato paste, and set it before her brothers. Even Akii took time off from his new toy to eat. Midii wolfed her own meal down, then took a tray with water and pasta into her father's room.

It was always quiet and dark in there; the curtains were drawn and the silence hung heavy in the air like a dead man's shroud. She approached her father timidly. "Daddy?" she said. "I got you dinner." A groan rose from the bed, and her father turned over from his stomach to his back to look at her. His deep brown eyes were dull and glazed; his skin was wan, and there was a five o'clock shadow on his chin. His hair was matted and his expression was weary.

"Midii," he croaked. "You're too good to me."

Midii found that she couldn't say anything; something had lodged itself in her throat and wouldn't come free no matter how vigorously she shook her head. She set the tray down before him and sat him up, fluffing his pillows and bringing him into a sitting position. "Call me when you're done, okay, daddy?" she forced out. Then she turned and fled away from the bed of a sick man she hardly knew any more but loved nonetheless.

Outside, in the hall, she just barely managed not to run into Odeiya as he came racing by, clutching his new bear. Startled, he skidded to a halt just as she stepped back hurriedly. "I'm sorry, Midii!" he said. "I didn't see you." She dredged up a smile from somewhere.

"That's okay, Odeiya. So, have you decided what to name him?" she asked, crouching down and gesturing at the bear.

"Ummm..." His little face screwed up in concentration, and Midii chuckled.

"Take your time, squirt. A good name'll come to you in time, huh?"

"Yeah. Yeah, it will!" Odeiya said brightly. Then he headed off down the hall towards his room. The bear slipped from his grasp and fell to the floor.

Its eyes went _click_ against the cold, hard wood.

As Odeiya picked up his bear and continued on, Midii just stood there watching him, feeling something awful and heavy and knotted, like a wet rope, in her stomach.

_Click_ went the bear's eyes against the wood.

_Click_ went the shuttle of her cheap camera as she took pictures of Anlas and some prostitute she didn't even know as they screwed in a deserted classroom.

"How much did you get?" asked the nameless soldier-boy who she had grown to love as they stood – only a few feet between them but it felt like so... damn... much ground to cover – together on the deserted field. Midii looked at him levelly; she could see, this once, through his blank expression; she could feel how much he hated her. Just like Anlas.

_I wish I could let myself care._

"Enough," she told him, "so that my three little brothers and sick father will be able to eat for a while." But she knew he wouldn't understand. She knew he would still hate her.

She couldn't let herself care no matter how much she wanted to.

"_Midii, Midii, Midii... blackmail is a serious offence," said the man before her solemnly. Midii shook her head, wide-eyed. The grand-looking office in which they were sitting frightened her; she decided to let that fear show. She could use it to her advantage._

"_I didn't! I really didn't! Please, sir, I have to get home – I have my family, my father's sick and my mother's dead and they rely on me... they won't get any dinner if I'm not there..."_

_The man chuckled and Midii wanted to jump over and punch him again and again and again. "I have an offer to make you, Midii. You see, the Alliance can always find uses for good liars. Recently, there has been an upsurging of rebel groups. Now, it's all well and good to send mobile suits against them – but we can't anticipate their every move."_

_Midii held her breath. She knew where this was going._

"_We can always use spies."_

"_Sir – please, you have to believe me! I'm not a blackmailer!"_

"_Midii, be quiet for a moment and listen." The man sounded annoyed. "We have proof. Let's drop the charade. I can use you. You can use me. How much does your blackmailing get you, I wonder? It can't be much. But if you'll work for me – for us –... Well, we pay quite handsomely. Enough to feed your family for quite a while. It's a much more attractive prospect than blackmailing somebody... and, the way things stand now, getting thrown in a juvenile detention center, don't you think?"_

_The girl bowed her head and thought it over._

You'll be responsible, _part of her said, _for the deaths of so many people... You'll have that guilt forever...

And Akii, Eetane, Odeiya and father will be happy and well-fed.

"_All right," she whispered. "All right."_

_And the man whose name she didn't even know smiled. "Good girl. Now, go with Miss Havening – she'll get you cleaned up, and then you can phone your family and rest a little. Then we'll talk."_

And as Nanashi walked away from her, she looked down at the shattered "game" in her hand; really a transmitter. How could something so small be the cause of so many deaths? she wondered. Then she realized: the transmitter wasn't the cause. It was her. And they were dead and Nanashi hated her.

_I can't let myself care._

When the broken transmitter fell to the ground it hit a pebble. _Click._

The neighbourhood they were living in had grown dangerous. Midii knew that so she stole a gun and hid it in her room. Ever since father had died she had her own. It felt lonely and often she woke up in the night with her heart pounding and whispering _his_ name – or lack of one – and feeling his hatred all over again. In that room where her father had died she dreamed of restless ghosts of people she had hardly known hovering around her in a world where everything was gray, and they whispered to her: "_Bitch, bitch, bitch, mitch, mitch, midge, mid, mideh, Midii..."_ She had discovered the two words didn't sound that unalike.

One day, she came home from work to find the door smashed open. She halted on the doormat, staring at the half-open door, and her eyes – those wide, innocent eyes which made her perfect to play the part of the angelic child – narrowed. She reached out, pressed her palm against the peeling paint of the door; pushed it open very slowly. Patience was key in this sort of a situation.

As she stepped inside, the thick carpet muffling her steps, she let her eyes adjust to the gloom of the mudroom. Very carefully, she knelt down and removed her sneakers; then, on feet muffled by socks, she crept down the hall. She could hear Eetane crying in the living room; a man's voice rose above his wails. The voice was roughened, by drugs and dirt, and unfamiliar. "Don't give me that crap! You've got money! I know you've got money!" Eetane's whimpers reached her ears. Anger stirred in her stomach, like a waking dog lifting its head.

It was with a lot of gratitude that Midii saw that the door to her room was wide open. She slipped inside soundlessly and knelt down beside her bed. She reached underneath and found the gun which she had taped to the bed frame. There was a crackling sound as the tape came off from the wood and she stripped it from the gun and balled up the tape and put it in the trash can; she held her breath, but the when the man spoke again he said: "Come on, boy! The money!" There was a thud and she heard a cry – she identified it as Akii. The white-hot rage coiled in her belly as she got to her feet and headed back into the hall. At the end of the hall, she stopped in the doorway to the living room.

She saw Akii lying on the floor, clutching his jaw; Odeiya, white-faced, clinging to the sofa arm; and Eetane, crouching with his head buried in his hands, wailing. The man was a huge hulking fellow, covered with tattoos, with a scruffy beard and torn clothes. _It's you or me... mate, _Midii thought grimly as she cleared her throat.

The man set his foot down and whirled around, raising his fists. Seeing her wide eyes and terrified expression, though, he laughed. "Hey, little girlie... who are you? These boys' sister, huh?" His eyes roved up and down her body, and he started to leer and took a step closer... another step...

Midii raised the gun. The man's eyes widened, but even then he didn't believe. He started to chuckle. "Girlie, you're not gonna pull that trigger. You don't scare me. You probably can't even aim that thing – you'll hit one of your little brothers. Don't do it." He took another step forward.

"Why not?" she asked. After all, she thought, as she raised the gun, she had lied for her family, backstabbed for her family, consigned people to death for her family...

It was just the next logical step.

She pulled the trigger.

_Click._

The man looked down in shock at his chest; a small red spot was spreading on the front of his shirt, exactly where his heart was. "No..." he gasped out. He fell to his knees; then slumped out on the ground. The floor was wood, otherwise she might have had a few more reservations about shooting him. Maybe, she thought contemplatively as she lowered the gun, I shouldn't have shot him. But she had been so angry, and he would have attacked her...

"It's all right now," she told her brothers quietly, smiling wanly.

But they did not smile back. They stared at her and they were... horrified.

_They're scared of me,_ she realized, and the realization was sudden and sickening, like swallowing an ice cube except much more painful. Their faces – they eyes – wide with terror – eyes – looking at her – accusing her – _They're scared of me._

_Scared of me._

_Nanashi hates me._

_Anlas hates me._

_They're scared of me._

_They hate me. I did everything I ever did for them._

_For "my sick father and three little brothers..." ... who are terrified of me... Please, no._

"Eetane," she said, reaching out for him. "It's okay. It's over." She stepped forward.

He shied back. She stared at him, the tears starting to brim in her eyes. "Odeiya... Akii..." They all looked at her with fear-filled eyes and stepped away. Stepped away to circle her and whisper accusations with their eyes – just like the ghosts in her dreams – but those were ghosts and those were dreams and this was reality and they were _her brothers_ for whom she had lived her entire life... "Please..."

They said nothing.

The inquiry was only cursory; the police had more important things to worry about than dead thugs. It was verified that Midii's gun was registered and that she had shot the man in self-defence; the body was removed and the case was closed.

After that, she tried. She tried to smile at them, laugh with them; but they drew away from her and watched her like frightened animals. She couldn't sleep at night because her dreams were filled with dark glass eyes set in blood-red faces which accused her no matter which way she turned.

_It was only the next logical step._

_I did it for them – I did _everything _for them! How can they fear me now? Hate me? How? How?_

There was never an answer as she sat in the dead of night, hugging her knees and fighting not to cry.

Every day, her limbs felt heavier. _I wanted to be the greatest actress the world has ever seen._

"_Good girl. Now, go with Miss Havening – she'll get you cleaned up, and then you can phone your family and rest a little. Then we'll talk."_

_Actress. Of a sort._

_They're all dead._

_I'm only fifteen years old._

_They're scared of me._

It really came home to her the day Akii got the results of his science test back. When she arrived at their appartment, she entered the living room, intending to throw herself on the couch. But when she saw her brother, with his dirty-blonde hair hanging over his face as he stared down at the papers in his hand, she stopped. "Akii?" she asked. "What's wrong?"

"My test. I failed it," he said. His voice was toneless, and then suddenly he seemed to _remember_, and he looked up and something in his eyes changed when he looked at Midii. She saw the fear and she remembered too. But she tried.

"Oh, Akii," she said, stepping forward with her arms outstretched. "I'm sorry. It'll be all right. C'mere and give me a hug." She said this last without even thinking; it was what she would have said two months ago, one month ago, and he would have smiled shakily and thrown himself into her arms. But that was then and this was now and he was shifting uncomfortably and stepping back.

Midii stopped. _He doesn't want to be hugged by a murderer._

_And who can blame him?_

It clicked.

Midii Une turned and ran.

She ran to her room and slammed the door and leaned against it, seeing her brothers' faces over and over again... over again... over again. She could feel it all resting on her shoulders: Nanashi and Anlas, hating her; Akii, Eetane and Odeiya, fearing her...

_I can't let myself care._

_But I do._

Midii raised her head to look at the ceiling.

_I do. I always did._

Then she said it out loud: "I care."

Her knees buckled and she fell to the floor and started to cry. The sobs were painful; her entire body heaved and shuddered. She didn't know how long she knelt there crying.

But if there was one thing Midii Une could do, it was control herself. She took a deep breath and released it without sobbing. The tears slowed. She got to her feet, walked across the room, to the bed – brought out the gun and carefully folded and threw away the tape. Her hand was perfectly steady as she raised the gun and put the barrel against her temple. _Akii's old enough to take care of Odeiya and Eetane, _she thought calmly. _And he's scared of me. _Everything would be all right. They could survive without her. They _should_ survive without her.

_They hate me._

I _hate me._

"I care," she said, trying the sound of the words on her tongue for the last time.

_Click._


End file.
